Quotes from Ronald A. Wells

Protagoras first wrote a phrase to which we shall have to return many times in this book: "Man is the measure of all things." As Toynbee writes, if we were to take that phrase out of Greek language and put it into Judeo-Christian language, "we should say the Hellenes saw in Man 'the Lord of Creation,' and worshipped him as an idol in the place of God.

The Hebrews were—and are—first and foremost a people of a story. What held the Hebrews together was not so much a sociocultural style or geographical place, because those varied; rather, it was an affirmation about God, about humankind, and about the nature of the universe. The Hebrews were radical monotheists who founded their personal and collective identities on an assertion of belief that their God was the creator and sustainer of the universe.